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Stay Close to God.

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Cruising is now a popular way of holidaying in luxury surroundings, whilst watching the world passes you by. Some passengers however were not so lucky in their choice of ocean liner, as today's story shows. I'm sure we have all heard of the sinking of the great passenger liner Titanic, on her maiden voyage from England to New York in 1912. Fifteen hundred men, women and children died that fateful night in one of history's worst maritime disasters ever recorded.

The fact that it was a brand new ship heralded as being "unsinkable" made this disaster even more shocking. The most widely held theory at the time, was that when the vessel struck the iceberg; it opened up a huge gash in its side, causing it to sink. But an international team of divers and scientists recently used sound waves to probe through the wreckage, which is buried in the mud two and a half miles down on the ocean bed.

They were surprised to find that the damage was surprisingly small and instead of a huge gash in the vessels side they found six relatively small slits, which unfortunately spread across the six watertight holds designed to stop the vessel from sinking.

So what really sank the Titanic? Four things that could sink us all too; first, they thought that they were immune and it couldn't happen to them. Second officers on the bridge failed to heed five different warnings of sheet ice in the area. Third, it wasn't one big thing, but a series of small things that eventually took them under. Finally, the problem that ultimately destroyed them was hidden beneath the water line completely out of sight of them all.

The things that happened on that fateful voyage could well have been written down as a warning to us all; so if we think we are standing firm, then we must take care that our house is built on a solid foundation. None of us however strong, wise, successful or virtuous is immune to failure and we may never know when the "tides of life" are going to sweep us away, so we must all stay close to God at all times.